Permission Marketing

ONLINE:

IN STORES:

Poke The Box

The latest book, Poke The Box is a call to action about the initiative you're taking - in your job or in your life, and Seth once again breaks the traditional publishing model by releasing it through The Domino Project.

IN STORES:

THE DIP BLOG by Seth Godin

All Marketers Are Liars Blog

What to do with your ideas for other people

Steve wrote me a note pointing out that as a marketer, he's always coming up with groundbreaking ideas that can help large companies or other marketers. Should he just let them go? Try to sell them? Submit them to the company?

Another reader wrote in complaining about Apple's insistence that they don't want to know about your great ideas. They refuse to read them.

You've probably been asked to sign a formal NDA document--someone wants to tell you a big secret and you're not allowed to tell anyone, at least not during this century.

It's frustrating. You've got this great idea, but no one wants it, or they're going to steal it.

Here's the essential distinction: Selling ideas is a fundamentally different business than having ideas.

It's like being a really fast runner but being unwilling to take a hit or unable to block. You may be fast, but you can't play football. Two different skills are involved, and having one is insufficient. Remember, the selling is a business onto itself, not something that you do after you get a great idea.

If you want to sell ideas to organizations, you need to invest heavily in the skills and status to do that. The quality of ideas is not a factor in whether or not you will be in a position to have a chance to sell those ideas. (That sentence is shocking but true, so reread it).

If you're unable to be in that position, my best advice is that you blog the ideas. At least you'll get them out of your system and get bragging rights if anything ever happens.

TrackBack

» Just sohappens from The Learning Curve
It happens that I know a guy who for years had been been in management with a national fast-food corporation based here in Louisville. He got laid off during the last big recession in the early 1990s in a broad cost-cutting staff reduction. ... [Read More]

Tracked on December 10, 2008 at 12:38 PM

» Having ideas... and selling ideas from Feeding the Puppy
Another quick, smart point from Seth Godin; the business of having great ideas is a different one from that of selling great ideas... Think back to every cracking idea you ever came up with for a client, or in a... [Read More]

Tracked on December 11, 2008 at 12:51 PM

» Finally getting started from The Mission Paradox Blog
At my day job I just finished marketing my fourth show. It has been a challenge at times but we have had some real good outcomes. Now I'm finally ready to implement my first major change, a new customer service... [Read More]

Tracked on December 12, 2008 at 08:41 AM

» having ideas and selling ideas from marginally subversive
Seth Godin writes about "having ideas and selling ideas" and offers this distinction: Selling ideas is a fundamentally different business than having ideas. Sure is different: how many times have we - in the ad and media world - come up with what we th... [Read More]

Tracked on December 14, 2008 at 03:27 AM

» The Risk of Sharing Ideas from Daniel O'Neil's Thoughts on International Development
What do you do with your great idea of how to change the world? Do you keep it secrete while you try to figure out how to make it work as your project or do you tell everyone that you... [Read More]